Have you ever competed in a spelling bee? Try working out the correct spelling of the word ‘awqwasition’ or, this time with a clue, ‘ocwasition of fine things’.
To 11-year-old Johnny Wong who lives with his Chinese immigrant mother in one room in a Toronto rooming house, this is what that unknown word sounds like that describes his draft dodger friend’s dodgy way of earning a living.
Johnny has been assigned a school project. To ‘rite’ to a pen pal.
It is 1970, and Johnny’s downtown Toronto neighbourhood is filled with a shifting population of new immigrants, Vietnam draft dodgers, and on the horizon fallout from the emerging FLQ crisis that will obliterate Canada’s innocence forever.
We see that turbulent time through the unflinchingly honest eyes of this pre-teen who starts his assignment with reluctance but gradually gets caught up in the complexity of life in a teeming city at the start of the 1970s.
When draft dodger Rollie takes Johnny under his wing and offers to help him with his assignment, the boy is flattered. When a neighbour is apparently murdered, Johnny believes he knows who is responsible. And when the children’s welfare arrives to inspect Johnny’s home life, the boy cannot understand why the inspector takes such a dim view of the lack of eggs, bread and milk in their Chinese home – subtly pointing to the systemic racism of the time as well as demonstrating a complete lack of understanding diversity.
We learn this through Johnny’s painstakingly penned letters, first to an unnamed pen pal and then to the well-known hockey player of that era, Dave Keon of the Toronto Maple Leafs. As you read, have a chuckle over the idiosyncratic spellings dotted throughout the book: John Lenin, ease drop, and kinder garden.
Author Wayne Ng is the son of Chinese immigrants and, like Johnny, grew up in a Toronto neighbourhood teeming with new immigrants, draft dodgers and a steady diet of kung fu movies. Following a year of travelling the world, he moved to Ottawa for graduate school and began to write. He still lives in the capital, working as a school social worker but retaining his passion for travel.
Ng has become a respected travel writer, forever heading off toward new horizons. He is also an award-winning short story writer. His first novel, Finding the Way: A Novel of Lao Tzu is about the founder of the Chinese philosophy, Taoism.
Letters From Johnny makes for an intriguing read, whether you are a young adult or your youth is in the rearview mirror. It is what I like to call an honest book, written from knowledge of what it was really like to grow up in a city on the cusp of uncomfortable change. Best of all, through his letters, Johnny makes an honest guide as he searches for his identity and wrestles with his need to belong.